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A Contrarian's Dilemma: Must Read From Tocqueville's John Hathaway

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A Contrarian’s Dilemma from Tocqueville Asset Management L.P.

 




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Tue, 12/08/2009 - 18:25 | Link to Comment bugs_
bugs_'s picture

"Not to be outdone, the central bank of India surprised the market"

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 18:39 | Link to Comment mule65
mule65's picture

Condensed: He still likes gold but this pullback sucks.

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 18:42 | Link to Comment MsCreant
MsCreant's picture

+100

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 18:56 | Link to Comment Hephasteus
Hephasteus's picture

Mules always make things short and sweet.

BAD KITTY!!

http://www.blackbearheaven.com/horse-kills-cougar.htm

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 19:50 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 12/08/2009 - 18:45 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 12/09/2009 - 05:06 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 12/08/2009 - 18:46 | Link to Comment GeoffreyT
GeoffreyT's picture

There's nothing wrong with being sensibly-contrarian at likely stopping points (when the market is overbought, sentiment is over-bullish, and things like the CCI are divergent) while still being a long-term bull.

I had toyed with the idea of shorting gold at $1100 (on the basis that it got there too quickly) but held off - but here is what I wrote on Nov 22 (on Facebook of all places - see http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?ref=name&id=1015193274 )...

 

"$1200 withiin days, but then everyone will be on one side of the boat. CoT shows that dumb money is ludicrously bullish - and dumb money always gets slaughtered.

I seldom disagree with Mrc Faber, but I think he's wrong (for once) and that - as part of a nuffie-slaughtering pullback - gold will head back to the $900s. (We're long - as we have been since 2002 -with our latest entry at $911... I love that number: first short call in ten years will be formally made depending on action this week)."

 

Cheerio

 

 

GT

GT's Market Rant

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 19:32 | Link to Comment SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

In perfecting the art of selling low and buying high, Barrick and other gold mining hedgers destroyed billions of dollars of their shareholders’ capital.  

Beautifully put.  I despise Barrick and wouldn't touch their stock.

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 19:51 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 12/08/2009 - 23:13 | Link to Comment GeoffreyT
GeoffreyT's picture

Anon #157232 - I don't agree that you can infer anything about underlying conditions (e.g., the 'rot') from price swings on short timescales.

Quite apart from the embedded assumption of log-linearity between the PoG and the 'rot', there is scope for persistent divergence between underlying conditions and asset prices (I offer as Exhibit A, housing prices in Detroit and Sacramento prior to the CDO-led debacle of 2008).

The long-run attractor for the PoG in USD is, always, the USD cost of production of an ounce of gold. It is by no means clear to me that this ought to rise faster than the rate of depreciation of the USD relative to the prices in which gold production factors are remunerated (e.g., ZAR in SAfrica, AUD in Australia for labour); producers gross margin - the determinant of the payments to capital - has to be converted for shareholders outside of the domicile of production.

As with the swing high in equities (and swing low in USD, for the moment) the recent behaviour of the PoG was predictable: when any market reaches a price extreme - up or down - there are always nuffnuffs lining up for a "Dirty Sanchez": they will be on the long side of Gold at $1200 (as they were at Nasdaq 5000, and S&P 1400, and AUD at $0.98 and EURUSD at $1.60) and they were on the short side at PoG $900 (and SPX 670 and AUD $0.61 and EURUSD $1.1600 and DAX 4000).

If you arrange your affairs to be on what the majority thinks is the 'wrong' side, you can make quite a decent living as a trader: the important thing is to be patient enough to be able to ignore an apparent top (or bottom) when the conditions aren't absolutley perfect (that's why I called off a gold short at $1100 the day before gold got to $1100 - conditions were not right).

Cheerio

 

Cheerio

 

GT

GT's Market Rant

Tue, 12/08/2009 - 21:16 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Tue, 12/08/2009 - 23:12 | Link to Comment GeoffreyT
GeoffreyT's picture

Anon #157369 - I wouldn't be too sure: if USDX (which is ripe for a bounce) gets legs (say, a brief spurt to above 80) then SPX 950 and PoG $900 are quite easily achievable without doing the least bit of damage to the long-term uptrend in Gold and the secular death throes of the US shekel (both of which were part of my pre-911 "The US is finished, like Britain in 1925" hypothesis from May 2000).

 

Cheerio

 

GT

GT's Market Rant

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 00:10 | Link to Comment pooplagrande
pooplagrande's picture

I was short gold too early 1100...and it started to hurt when it went to 1200...Oddly, I changed my gold tune and after the recent dump in gold prices (and a chat with Pomboy), I cut my losses on the shorts and went long today. Good luck to me...

Oddly, I am still long the dollar and oil, short the SPX and ultrashort the 10yr.

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 10:10 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 12/09/2009 - 11:47 | Link to Comment order6102
order6102's picture

Very good paper. Its not easy to find gold article without conspiracy.. What i find preplexing among gold investors is love for all sort of conspiracy theory. Paper gold vs physical gold. ITS NONSENSE! i went to delivery with COMEX and LBMA. there are NO issues... futures are and will be most efficient way to trade gold, oil, grain or even stocks. Until financial system fully meltdowns there are no advantages of holding physical vs rolling futures. If market going to have one it will be arb out.

Thu, 12/10/2009 - 05:45 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Thu, 12/10/2009 - 10:18 | Link to Comment Anonymous
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